Getting an earful

Pig ears are the unexpected ingredient of the moment,
writes Necia Wilden.

NOW is the season for pig ears. By which I'm not suggesting pig
ears pop up in spring like asparagus. No, it's that the fashionable
cookbook season for pig ears is officially under way.

It started with Fergus Henderson, the boss-daddy of all things
piggy, with Nose to Tail Eating: a Kind of British
Cooking. First published in 1999, this strange, singular
little book was a sleeper that went from underground classic to
foodies' must-have after New York chef and author Anthony Bourdain
got on board, heaping praise on his offal-loving friend and penning
an adoring introduction for the book's re-release in 2004.

Pig ears star in two recipes in Nose to Tail, alongside
recipes for - separately - pig's blood, cheek, head, liver, spleen,
tails, tongues and trotters. Coy presentation is not Henderson's
thing, either. The book's photographs are graphic, visceral
black-and-white shots of severed ears, a heart, fat lolling tongue
and so on. It's as though James Ellroy has popped round to cook
dinner.

Perhaps it was a sleeper trend, for now it's pig ear-a-go-go. In
the past couple of months, I've seen three cookbooks by Australian
chefs with recipes for pig ears. Of course, like most fashions,
it's not original. In her column on Sydney chef Janni Kyritsis
(Epicure, October 31), Stephanie Alexander reminds us that
pig ears were part of the famous offal salad served at Stephanie's
restaurant back in 1981. Yes, but she was ahead of her time.

In his new book Wild Weed Pie, Kyritsis shares two
recipes; one, for stuffed pig's ear with green tartare sauce and
watercress salad, starts with this instruction: "Using a pair of
tongs, hold the pig's ears over an open flame to singe off any
hairs." The other recipe is for a salad of brisket, pig's ear
cartilage and green elk - the elk, as I was relieved to discover,
is a salad green, not the large European deer.

Sydney chef Serge Dansereau, meanwhile, gives his pig ears a bit
of surf 'n' turf flavour with a recipe for crispy pork ears with
abalone and jellyfish in the just-released Bathers' Pavilion
Cookbook. And Justin North goes the whole hog in Becasse, with
no less than eight recipes for funny piggy bits including braised
pig ears, crisp pig's tail, assiette of pig's head and trotters
stuffed with confit pork neck.

Back in Britain, too, the Henderson legacy is still strong.
While London-based Italian Giorgio Locatelli doesn't mention ears
in his new book, Made in Italy, he does write a segment
titled "Nose to Tail" and matches it to a photograph of a
cleaned, severed beast's head with its tongue hanging out - very
Fergus.

Where will they pop up next? In the Tuesday night cooking
section of Delicious magazine? ("Start this recipe three
days in advance. . .") Perhaps not quite yet. My new copy of
Women's Weekly Cook - a book that boldly claims to teach
you "how to cook absolutely everything" - is also silent on the
subject of pig ears. But wherever you see (hear?) them in future,
it's good to remember: Fergus did it first.